Everyone is aware of the importance that oil and other such materials have on today's world. They represent an important topic from a wide range of perspectives ranging from environmental to economic to political. At a chemical level, these materials are significant because the substances of which they are composed have hydrogen and carbon containing molecules whose structure readily yields energy when burned. In some instances the naturally occurring raw materials are already in a desirable state. For example, CH4, methane a “natural gas”—as its name implies—is often available in a preferred chemical composition in nature. Some hydrocarbons, however, do not significantly occur in a preferred state in nature.
Fortunately, most hydrocarbon molecules can be easily separated or transformed through thermal and chemical processes. The transformation and separation, usually done on a larger scale with creation and collection of the desired species is the process known popularly as a “refining” the material. To the populace, this is what a refinery does; it continuously takes raw, naturally occurring material and refines it into one or more forms that are more commercially desirable. As but one example, the heavier molecules found in bitumen can be split into lighter components through refining processes. From a simplified perspective, the process of refining material involves heating and altering the composition of the fuel materials by distillation, breaking or cracking the longer molecules into shorter ones, driving the various species off as volatile components, and then collecting substances in the desired form.
Many refining processes produce coke. When hydrocarbons are heated above certain temperatures, they can reach a point at which the carbon atoms bind together and form a substance known as coke. Coke can be problematic because it is a very hard and relatively untransformable substance which usually binds to its container when formed. Great pains are often taken in processing relative to coke. For example, there is a newly invented technique to identify the point at which coke may precipitously form. This technique, described in PCT Application No. PCT/US00/15950, hereby incorporated by reference, shows great promise.
Coking processes require careful handling. Here, processes are often accomplished in a batch or semi-batch modality. After coke has formed, the container is set apart to jackhammer or otherwise remove the coke from it. By its very nature, a true continuous process is difficult to achieve. In addition, because of the larger capital expense of such handling, at present only large refineries currently utilize coking as the principal method of upgrading heavy crude oils. Thus, while desirable for efficiency, smaller refineries have not been able to practically utilize coking processes on a commercially viable basis. Since the crude oil supplied to refineries is becoming heavier, this need is becoming more acute.
In spite of this need, however, a solution to the precipitous formation of coke and availability of coking processes has not been available to the degree commercially desired. Certainly the importance of the refining process is well known. There has been a long felt but unsatisfied need for more efficiency, for more availability, and for better handling of such processes. In spite of this long felt need, the appropriate process as not been available, however. As the present invention shows, through a different approach to the problems, a solution now can exist. Perhaps surprisingly, the present invention shows not only that a solution is available, it also shows that the solution is one that from some perspectives can be considered to use existing implementing arts and elements. By adapting some features from other fields of endeavor (such as the remediation or toxic waste recovery fields as mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 5,259,945), the present invention can solve many of the problems long experienced by the refinery field.
To an extent, the present invention can be consider as showing that in the refining field those skilled in the art may have simply had too limited a perspective and while there were substantial attempts to achieve the desired goals, those involved failed perhaps because of a failure to appropriately understand the problem of coke formation in the appropriate context. In fact, the efforts may even have taught away from the technical direction in which the present inventors went and so the results might even be considered as unexpected. Thus the present invention may represent not merely an incremental advance over the prior art, it may provide a critically different approach which afford the ability to utilize coking process while also providing a continuous process operation. As will be seen, the physical features which permit this critical difference in performance are not merely subtleties in batch-type processing (such as might exist in a semi-batch modality), they are an entirely different way of dealing with the coke and the processes. Thus, until present invention no processes provided the ability to permit truly continuous, coking processing in the commercially practical manner now possible.